Create a Healthy, Satisfying Salad

Story Published:
May 28, 2013 at 10:15 AM PST

It's easy to take a healthy salad and make it something "less than good for you" very quickly. Healthy Grocery Girl Megan Roosevelt, a registered & licensed dietitian, joined us to share some simple ways to make a healthy, satisfying salad.

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Great lettuce is key to any great salad. Buying prewashed and precut lettuce helps to improve salad taste, and ease, making salad time happen more often. Salad containers can also help keep greens lasting longer and not becoming slimy before you even have a chance to prepare them. Choose organic lettuce, it will taste better and be better for you. Also remember commonly the darker the greens are, the more nutritional value they have. For example kale has more nutritional benefits than iceberg lettuce.

Add Fulfilling Toppings

Make sure you have a good variety of protein, healthy fats and carbohydrates to truly make your salad a meal. Choose from the following list:

Carbohydrates: Beans (both a protein and a carbohydrate), starchy vegetables
such a Sweet Potatoes and Corn. You can even add whole grains to a salad such as quinoa, brown rice, wheat berries or faro!

Fun Extras

Add texture! Organic crackers using real ingredients make for excellent “croutons”. Or add your favorite nut or seed to a salad for added crunch.

Flavor Up with Real Salad Dressing

Read your ingredient lists! Avoid salad dressing with artificial sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup, or hydrogenated oils “trans fats”. Look for salad dressing with few and minimal ingredients, yet provide ingredients you can pronounce such as olive oil, herbs, spices, balsamic vinegar, or red wine vinegar. *Be careful of the word “natural” on products as well. There is not regulation for the use of this word. Always read your ingredient lists!

Gloopy, thick salad dressing that you can not see through are often not good for you, think blue cheese salad dressing.